Why Writing Can Be A Spiritual Discipline

Spiritual discipline can be done in any form. There is no complete list of it but often we think it was only limited to self-denial by fasting, solitude, silence, practicing sabbath, worshipping, service, praying and bible reading.

Who thinks that writ­ing can be a spir­i­tu­al dis­ci­pline? Besides, not every­one is gift­ed with writ­ten com­mu­ni­ca­tion. If our words pos­sessed the pow­er to make a dif­fer­ence or tear some­one down, I think writ­ten words have more impact than any­thing else.

Because writ­ten words will remain for­ev­er even its cre­ator was gone already. The Bible, for exam­ple, was writ­ten by dif­fer­ent authors and have been trans­lat­ed into dif­fer­ent lan­guages, though the authors have died of per­se­cu­tion already or some of the old age, the words they wrote was still here. In fact, Bible has been the num­ber 1 best-sell­ing book of all time.

Today peo­ple com­mu­ni­cate dif­fer­ent­ly, work dif­fer­ent­ly, and play dif­fer­ent­ly. Yet many Chris­tians failed to rec­og­nize this fun­da­men­tal change.

I’ve heard count­less oppo­si­tions from peo­ple of the same faith, failed to rec­og­nize that an entre­pre­neur can mar­ry God’s word into his busi­ness. But with all what is hap­pen­ing in the blog­ging world, where every­one was post­ing their high­ly opin­ion­at­ed thoughts, satir­i­cal news, edgy arti­cles, I even see books get­ting sold-out more on enter­tain­ment, gos­sips, and books writ­ten by some celebri­ties who doesn’t have any­thing valu­able you can read with it.

With this cul­ture, can we real­ly mar­ry God into the world of writ­ing and still impact peo­ple through it? Can we real­ly make writ­ing a spir­i­tu­al dis­ci­pline?

The answer is: Yes

The Gospel message has not changed since 2000+ years ago, but the way people receive and process messages have changed.

Here are the rea­sons why:

1. Writ­ing is a form of wor­ship.

When we wor­ship, our focus instant­ly shifts towards God. Music instant­ly shifts our focus to God. When we see beau­ti­ful places, we instant­ly in awe of how God cre­at­ed the earth.

The same when I am writ­ing, my per­spec­tive shifts. I may stare at a blank word doc­u­ment for a few min­utes but when I start to write, my focus instant­ly shifts to my inner world. My inner world is full of inspi­ra­tion and it makes me for­get every­thing that con­tributes to my stress caused by exter­nal fac­tors.

Jose Mar­ti once said: “Mankind is com­posed of two sorts of men — those who love and cre­ate, and those who hate and destroy.”

Writ­ing is cre­at­ing. When­ev­er I write, I feel cre­ative even though I can’t draw. God cre­at­ed the world with his vast array of imag­i­na­tion. Of course, we as humans don’t have the pow­er to cre­ate things through our voice, but we are known for cre­at­ing by first imag­in­ing it, then record­ing it — by writ­ing.

After devo­tion is also an oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate a piece of art. I write what God has told me each day in a jour­nal.

When I write, I cre­ate words, then words become sen­tences that form an entire para­graph. Until that para­graph forms a page, until it becomes a book.

When Apos­tle Paul was writ­ing the epis­tles in prison, he was cre­at­ing a part of the Bible we have today.

3. Writ­ing is mis­sion­al.

We write every day. We cre­ate mes­sages, reply to emails.

I men­tioned ear­li­er how many Chris­tians, opposed adopt­ing tech­nol­o­gy in shar­ing the gospel. They think it was not effec­tive. But when Bob­by Grue­newald, the founder of You­ver­sion, the famous Bible web­site before it turned to become a mobile app, he changed how peo­ple think of tech­nol­o­gy.

In my arti­cle Cod­ing For Jesus, I shared how peo­ple from dif­fer­ent church­es col­lab­o­rate how to inten­si­fy min­is­ter­ing to dif­fer­ent peo­ple with dif­fer­ent cul­ture with the help of tech­nol­o­gy.

When I write, I can be mis­sion­al too. I have a lot of friends and for­mer class­mates sur­prised me when I saw them being con­vert­ed to Chris­tian­i­ty and I don’t share the gospel with them per­son­al­ly. One class­mate just shared to me that he con­stant­ly see what I post on Face­book.

There are few peo­ple also whom I don’t know leav­ing a mes­sage how they were inspired of what I have shared with them lead­ing them to attend a church.

Oh! did you know that I have been saved and even­tu­al­ly con­vert­ed also in a non-tra­di­tion­al way? I was encour­aged to attend a church when I sought for more knowl­edge about God, then I stum­bled upon the blog of one pas­tor in the church I am attend­ing. You can check his blog here.

When the dis­ci­ples wrote what is in the Bible they know that they have the mis­sion to use it as an instru­ment to change the world and until now it con­tin­ues to change the lives of many peo­ple.

4. Writ­ing is serv­ing.

When­ev­er I write, I have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve dif­fer­ent kinds of peo­ple since I pub­lish what I wrote online. When every­thing goes online, the chances are many peo­ple from dif­fer­ent nations will be able to read it.

I serve when I write down my source of pain, and how God is try­ing to redeem me from it. I serve when some­one was able to relate to my expe­ri­ences.

And believe it or not, you can write even you are not a writer.

At the end of the day, I want my Mas­ter to say: “Well done, good and faith­ful ser­vant! You have been faith­ful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s hap­pi­ness!” (Matthew 22:23)

Sign up now for our newslet­ter and get your FREE eBook and updates deliv­ered to your inbox each month!

I blog about my dis­cov­er­ies and learn­ings with per­son­al devel­op­ment, blog­ging, writ­ing, pub­lic speak­ing, and pub­lish­ing. I am a Jesus fol­low­er. Each month, I send out a newslet­ter with free tips on those top­ics.